There really wasn’t much drama during Game Four of the 2013 ALCS. The Detroit Tigers won 7-3, and the score probably belied an even more lopsided game. It was 5-0 after two innings, 7-0 after… Read more »
Miscellaneous
When Adrian Gonzalez stepped to the plate in the bottom of the third inning Wednesday, with Game 5 of the 2013 NLCS tied at two, no Los Angeles Dodgers batter had hit a home run… Read more »
My brother-in-law has real live friends, at least on the Internet, instead of shouting his thoughts into the void 2,000 words at a time. He shot me an email yesterday afternoon, after a conversation on… Read more »
Peter Gammons speculated publicly this month that Tampa Bay Rays ace left-hander David Price could be a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2014. I have enormous respect for Gammons, his industry knowledge, his… Read more »
Mike Napoli is creatying a very positive post-season reputation for himself. His home run in Game 3 of the 2013 ALCS, off Justin Verlander, helped erase what has been a tough series for him otherwise…. Read more »
Justin Verlander didn’t get cute on Tuesday. He didn’t try to fool the Boston Red Sox, nor go looking for broken bats or quick innings. He just threw his fastball by one Red Sox batter… Read more »
Justin Verlander will face the Boston Red Sox in Game 3 of the 2013 ALCS on Tuesday, in a 4 o’clock Eastern time start. FOX has to be bummed about the bad break they caught,… Read more »
All four teams left in the 2013 MLB postseason—the St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers—are built to last, to one degree or another. Each is terrifically talented, and none… Read more »
At first, it’s a little bit hard to see what makes Boston Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz so tough on opposing batters. He can throw hard, but usually isn’t blowing people away, and anyway his… Read more »
Everything you need to know about Game One of the 2013 ALCS Saturday night, you can learn from the sequence of pitches Anibal Sanchez threw to Shane Victorino with an 0-2 count in the bottom… Read more »
The Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals are the powerhouses of the National League, this side of World War II. Branch Rickey’s legacy lays most heavily on these two teams, one for whom he… Read more »
The quote for which Moneyball might be best known lies on page 275 of my soft-edged, creased-spined paperback copy. Author Michael Lewis asked Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane why it was that, after a long… Read more »
If I had St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny’s job, Adam Wainwright wouldn’t have taken the mound for the ninth inning on Wednesday night in St. Louis. As small a thing as it sounds, I… Read more »
With news Wednesday that Joe Girardi had signed a contract to stay on as manager of the New York Yankees, any delusions that the Chicago Cubs would find their new skipper in short order seem… Read more »
The Boston Red Sox are balanced, deep and relentless. That’s the takeaway from their American League Division Series showdown with the Tampa Bay Rays, which Boston closed out with a 3-1 win Tuesday night. Shane… Read more »
There will be no more opening the At Bat app at noon and finding anything to do but answer the phone in my office, until next April. There will be no more walking home with… Read more »
Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball, and has been the best in the National League for three years. He’s headed toward Randy Johnson and Warren Spahn territory, to a very real conversation about… Read more »
In the St. Louis Cardinals’ two losses thus far in the National League Division Series, they have scored just four total runs. The Pittsburgh Pirates have effectively shut them down since the third inning of… Read more »
The Boston Red Sox have baseball’s best offense. They’re deadly. They’re even more deadly at home, though, where their right-handed sluggers can take aim at the Green Monster. And they’re at their most deadly when… Read more »
I love the Rays. Joe Maddon is a delight, in addition to bring the game’s best current tactician. Evan Longoria is maybe the most underrated player in baseball, and one of these years, Joe Sheehan’s… Read more »
Mickey Lolich had a two-year peak. He pitched over 3,600 innings in the Major Leagues over parts of 16 seasons, but in only two did he post a sub-3.00 ERA, or any ERA more than… Read more »
The 2013 Los Angeles Dodgers’ season breaks up nicely into three segments. In segment one, injuries to Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Zack Greinke conspired with disappointing performance from their back-end starting pitching to threaten the… Read more »
The St. Louis Cardinals are the more talented team in their 2013 NLDS showdown with the Pittsburgh Pirates. That’s difficult for an impartial observer to dispute. While Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen might be the best… Read more »
Technically, the 2013 MLB postseason kicked off Tuesday night in Pittsburgh. The Pirates beat the Reds 6-2. With that, Cincinnati went home, the third team under the new two-Wild Card format to be eliminated from… Read more »
Andy Van Slyke kept yelling, imploring him to move in, but Barry Bonds stood stone-still. The best player in Pittsburgh Pirates history, Bonds’s one weakness was an outfield arm that rated roughly average, not a… Read more »
David Price could easily have let the Texas Rangers live inside his head. Entering Monday night’s Wild Card tiebreaker, Price had been miserable against Texas, and downright awful at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. I ignored… Read more »
Over the last four years, no two teams have played more pleasing head-to-head baseball than the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers. They play what the unfortunately crass Twittersphere calls baseball porn. (It may… Read more »
So, you want to watch the world burn, too, eh? Excellent. Come on inside. This is the situation. With 11 (or 12, in some cases) games left in the 2013 season, six teams have at… Read more »
This is the debut of a new feature here at Arm Side Run, one which may become the entirety of the blog if it works. It’s called The Rotation, and the plan is to touch… Read more »
I do this not to belittle Eric Karabell, whose tenure on the Baseball Today podcast was a delight and whose writing I quite enjoy, but because it has to be done. On the Baseball Tonight podcast… Read more »
